A major problem with transitioning to a new computer architecture is that users usually want applications which had previously been run on the old architecture to be run on the new architecture. Considerable investment in time and money is expended in developing applications and training people in the use of the new architecture. Users are also, understandably, unwilling to change their work tools during a migration to a new computer architecture. Preserving legacy applications can, of course, be achieved by porting the application to the new environment. However, this requires that the source code be accessible and that the application be recompiled specifically for the new platform. If every component of the source code is not available, porting the application is either extremely time-consuming or impossible.
This problem can be solved, to a degree, using binary translation techniques whereby the binary code from the legacy application is automatically converted from one instruction set to another without the need for high-level source code
An example of a binary translation system is the Aries product available from Hewlett-Packard. The Aries product assists migration between the PA-RISC (precision architecture reduced instruction set computing) architecture and IA-64 systems running HP-UX. The Aries fast interpreter accurately emulates a complete set of PA-RISC instructions with no user intervention. During interpretation, it monitors the applications execution pattern and translates only the frequently executed code into native IA-64 code at runtime. At the end of the emulation, Aries discards all the translated code without modifying the original application. Therefore, dynamic translation provides fast emulation and preserves the integrity of the emulated PA-RISC application. The Aries dynamic translator also performs Environment Emulation which emulates PA-RISC applications system calls, signal delivery, exception management and threads management.
When performing the translation of an application from a source architecture to a target architecture, it is extremely useful to have access to the same analytical tools as would be available to a programmer developing an application for a specified architecture. A key tool/process is the facility to analyse a core dump file.
A core dump can be defined as printing or the copying to hard disk the contents of a random access memory (RAM) of a machine (e.g., a computer) and all hardware registers at a specific moment, usually when a system failure occurs. A core dump can be thought of as a complete snapshot of the RAM and all hardware registers of the machine and thus represents the state of the machine at the time of the system failure. Thus, a core dump is used mainly for debugging a program during development of an application. In the present context, it is envisaged that core dumps are to be used in the maintenance of emulated applications where the application needs to be debugged so that problems in emulation of the non-native application can be resolved. When an emulated application crashes on a target machine, the core file produced corresponds to that of the emulator. It carries virtually no information relating to the emulated application and thus there is no way for an application developer to analyse the cause of the fault.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a method of and apparatus for allowing a user to obtain a core dump image of a software application belonging to a source platform, running on a target platform, with the help of a software emulator, in the situation where the emulated application crashes on the target system.